One of the girls from Amril’s party? A whore? That didn’t sound like Amron. “I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do. I know you well, you can’t hide your thoughts from me.” Ferisa approached her and laid her palm on Melia’s cheek. “I don’t begrudge you enjoying your husband, little raven. It’ll all be over soon anyway.”
A sudden urge to punch Ferisa made Melia’s hands twitch, but what good would that do? Melia closed her eyes, feeling she’d never woken from her nightmare. “What’s next?”
“We wait for your father. The decision is his. But be prepared for violence”
It felt like a game, like some dark fable they whispered to each other. Two desperate women keeping each other warm in the drafty corridors of Syr. A fantasy of revenge devised by two helpless nobodies, whose pain pushed them to dream about setting fire to the kingdom, shaking the great empire. Futile daydreaming, born out of anger. Grand schemes, as empty asher father’s halls. And yet.
“Ferisa,” Melia said, taking her hand, warm and familiar. Here in Abia she looked as strange to Melia as Melia must have looked to her, but they were still the same people who’d spent so many nights alone in the dark, whispering secrets, holding each other tight. “Amron took me to see the border forts after the wedding.”
“So you saw what the Seragians do to us?”
“Yes. No. I talked to the women there.” She remembered the dim kitchen, the young woman with her child. “They told me it is not us against the Empire, that the people on both sides of the border are the same—”
“I spent five years on the border, healing people in the villages and forts, helping them pass to the other side,” Ferisa cut her off. “And you’re trying to explain it to me?”
“They said it was just the soldiers and the brigands. They cared nothing about the king or the emperor—”
Ferisa’s hand landed on her shoulder, as if she wanted to shake her. “They’re camp followers, bed-warmers, whores. Of course all men look the same to them, as long as they pay them and keep them warm.”
“No, that’s not—”
“Do you think they understand politics? History? Do you think they understand what honor is, earning their living on their backs and knees?”
“What do you know about honor?” growled Melia.
“Oh, yes, I’m baseborn filth, my lady. You know everything about it, obviously, so tell me, do you think the Seragians did not celebrate when they learned how heavy a blow they’d dealt to Roderi of Elmar? Do you think they didn’t toast Rovin’s death? Killing their greatest enemy’s heir, that must have been a massive achievement. And then seeing his daughter marry into the very family that crawled before them begging for peace? That must have felt like triumph, Melia. They pulled our teeth out oneby one. And now they’ll come here and watch us helpless and humiliated and congratulate themselves on their cleverness.” Her fingers dug into Melia’s flesh, but her words hurt more. “Tell me, when the emperor’s daughter steps off her ship today and looks you in the eye and smiles, how will that make you feel?”
Melia tried to blink away the tears, but they spilled from the corners of her eyes, running down her cheeks, where she furiously rubbed them away. “Why are you saying this?” she asked. “I am constantly forced—by you, by my father—to go back and relive my pain.”
“What do you meanrelive? The pain is always here, it never went away.”
The sunlight in the garden dimmed and the world slowed down as if it had been submerged in deep water. Shadows rushed to swallow Melia and Ferisa, and when she looked at her companion, Melia saw that she was barely more than a shadow herself. A dark husk; a flaking, hollow shell with nothing but a ball of fury burning inside her chest like a fiery lump of coal. When Melia looked down, she saw that she was the same, a shadow with a blazing heart.
It occurred to her that maybe they were already dead, it was just that their bodies hadn’t noticed it yet. They had been infused with so much death that they must have perished a long time ago. Melia never survived her silent sickness, the physicians were wrong, Ferisa was wrong. The body she released from the stupor was just an animated cadaver. And Ferisa, how devout was she to her goddess? How much darkness had she swallowed, how many times had she crossed to the other side, until she became nothing but a burning shadow fueled by vengeance?
Tears now flowed down her cheeks freely and she didn’t try to stop them. What were a few salty drops in the dark water that surrounded them?
“There’s no going back, no setting things right,” Ferisa said.“It’s too late for that. All we can do is make them hurt as we hurt. Set this whole evil alliance on fire.”
Melia nodded. What choice did she have? It had all been decided a long time ago, when the first man raised his sword in vengeance.
“Your father will be here soon, and then we’ll strike.” Ferisa cupped her wet face in her hands. “His men are already in their positions, and you—you’ll help me deliver the crucial blow. There will be no peace with the Seragians, no wedding, no kneeling before the murderers while our blood still drips from their fingers.”
Melia put her hand on the back of Ferisa’s neck and pressed her forehead to Ferisa’s. They remained like that, in a mute vow, breathing in the same slow rhythm, until the light around them seeped back and the world sped up again.
Dark fog evaporated from Melia’s mind and, now certain of her purpose, she saw things with a new clarity.
“The men who were with you last night, has Amron seen their faces? Can he recognize them?” she asked.
“No, they left Abia immediately. They’re halfway to Elmar already, and I had my face covered. No one will recognize me.”
She was probably right. Few people in Abia knew what Seragians really looked like. All border folk would look the same to them. Dark skin, funny accents, strange clothes seen only on woodcuts depicting border clashes.
“No one will recognize you,” Melia echoed. “I wish we could just go away, you and I. Jump over this wall right now and disappear, leave Abia, leave the kingdom. There’s so much of the world outside where no one would know or care who we are.”
“You’d never leave your father,” Ferisa said.
